Meet Jenna Glassock of Laurel Trust Law LLP

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenna Glassock.

Hi Jenna, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hello! My name is Jenna, and I’m a trusts and estates attorney in Studio City and a founder of Laurel Trust Law LLP. During my first year of law school, my mom was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. My dad had died just before I was born, and my mom and I were incredibly close. She was able to see me graduate and start at a top law firm but passed away soon after. While I was working hard as a corporate litigator, I was also enduring a drawn out, expensive, and emotional probate court process on her estate. During law school, I had developed an interest in trusts and estates, and living through all of the ways that the process can go poorly inspired me to want to help others avoid that experience. I left my job, got my MBA at UCLA, and started my own law firm focusing on estate planning and post death administration.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Of course not! Leaving the comfort and stability of my corporate law job was scary, and I tend to be a fairly risk averse person. Starting my own law firm in a new practice area seemed impossible to me, and that fear led me to take a more familiar path: school. I decided to attend UCLA Anderson School of Business for my MBA to study entrepreneurship. I entered the program with an idea for a beer-industry business that I worked on with colleagues with the goal that I would start the business upon graduating. However, I was fortunate to get pregnant and give birth to my son during my second year. I was able to graduate early but quickly realized that starting a brick-and-mortar business with an infant at home was not the right fit for me. While that felt like a huge obstacle at the time, it was actually the best thing that could have happened since it gave me the nudge to take seriously my dream of starting my law practice. I spent my son’s naps and evenings after he was asleep writing a 50-page business plan for what was meant to be a solo law practice. Knowing how to put a business plan together and systematically thinking through the opportunities available and risks present helped give me the confidence to take the leap and hang my shingle.

There were peaks and valleys during those first few years, including taking a break to have my second son. As soon as I felt like I was hitting my stride growing my law practice, COVID happened. With two young kids at home and a husband who worked full time, everything was thrown into chaos as we tried to balance work and parenting. Thankfully I had made close relationships with many estate planning attorneys and other professionals, and we came together to figure out how to get through those tumultuous early months.

In the last couple of years as my practice has really grown, I had to come to terms with needing help. But, again, fear – in this case, the fear of being responsible for someone else’s livelihood – held me back from really putting in place the pieces I needed to grow. There were both hits and misses as I tried to expand, but each bad fit helped me realize what steps I needed to be taking.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a female-founded law practice that specializes in estate planning, business formation, probate representation, and trust administration. Our mission is to take what is often an unenjoyable but necessary task and make it feel straightforward, achievable, and pleasant. We take an education-focused approach to the practice of law: it is important to us not just that *we* know that we’re doing the best thing for our clients but that our clients understand the options available to them, the pros and cons of different approaches, and the reasoning behind our recommendations.

I am so proud of what my partner and I have built. Law firms are a very traditional and conservative business model, and we have worked hard to make our firm feel modern and approachable. Since we represent a wide variety of people on such a personal matter, many of our clients have little to no experience working with attorneys and often come to us apprehensive about what this legal process will be like. We take pride in putting those clients at ease.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Few of my colleagues and clients know that I spent a year and a half starting a brick-and-mortar beer business while getting my MBA. In what feels like a prior life, I was a homebrewer of beer. I, with the invaluable help of some very smart classmates, spent over a year putting together a business plan for a store and bar where customers could brew their own beer. While it would have been a very cool experience getting the business up-and-running, I am glad that my path changed and led me to my current law practice, which is truly a more fulfilling career than I even imagined for myself.

Contact Info:

• Email: jenna@ltlfirm.com
• Website: www.ltlfirm.com